2006 Ghent Winter Bar Tour

February 25th, 2006

Thanks to many helpful volunteers, friendly bar staff, and over 350 enthusiastic participants, the 2006 Ghent Winter Bar Tour was able to raise over $6,000 for the Make-A-Wish Foundation® of Eastern Virginia! All pictures we've received to date have been posted in our photo gallery. Thanks for coming out and we'll see you at the next tour in the summer!

Event Summary

Since our first Ghent Bar Tour was a resounding success and subsequently generated many requests amongst friends, co-workers, and neighbors for another one, we decided not only to do it again but to make it even BIGGER! The 2006 Ghent Winter Bar Tour took place on Saturday, February 25th with all proceeds going to our charity of choice, the Make-A-Wish Foundation® of Eastern Virginia. The tour began at the registration booth located outside the Taphouse Grill where a throng of people showed up right as the booth opened at 4:00 PM and got the tour off and rolling! Two hours and over 350 participants later, the registration booth closed up with smiles of success all around.

Many participants crammed into the crowded Taphouse to grab their first drink of the day before heading out elsewhere. It wasn't long before we started hearing from volunteers out at locations that we were running out of poker cards for our top competition. We had to tell people to keep moving on - there's more cards at the next bar! And participants did keep moving. We had nearly 100 people visit all TEN locations and receive a special prize and certificate for doing so. In fact, there were so many groups out on the streets of Ghent that night, it almost felt like Halloween in February.

2006 Ghent Winter Bar Tour Map

Eventually participants made their way to the New Belmont for the "closing ceremony" where the crowd was so thick by 9:00 PM one could barely move an arm without bumping into a new friend. Congratulations to all of the competition and raffle winners we announced at the ceremony - we hope you enjoy your prizes! The 3 participants who won the Shirt Signature Contest went all out and got nearly every inch of their long sleeve shirts covered in writing. One contestant even ran out of room on their shirt and had to start having people write on the inside! The 5 people that won prizes in the Texas Hold 'Em Tournament had the lucky hands of 5-of-a-Kind, 4-of-a-Kind (three times), and a Full House with Aces over Kings. After singing happy birthday to many of our participants celebrating their special day and saying a few very well-deserved thank yous, we made our fundraising announcement - $5,850! (Afterwards our numbers grew a little more to reach our final fundraising count of $6,280!)

All in all, the 2006 Ghent Winter Bar Tour was more excitement, more people, and more fundraising (and more work too) than any of us imagined could be possible when we started out. It was such a hit that plans for another tour in the summer started only hours after it ended. We hope you all had fun at this one and look forward to seeing you out again!

Any pictures we currently have from this event have been posted in our photo gallery. If you have additional pictures from the event that you would like us to post so that your friends who didn't make it out can see just how much fun they missed, please send them as attachments to and we will post them as soon as possible. Thanks!

Have your own thoughts or comments on the 2006 Ghent Winter Bar Tour? Submit a review and let us know what you liked about this tour and/or what you think we could improve at the next one.

Participating Bars

Thank you again to the TEN participating locations on our "lineup" of bars:

Special Thanks

A special thanks to those businesses who were so kind to make donations in support of this event:

Dairy Queen 1520 Colley Ave	Tropical Smoothie 742 W 21st St	Papa John's 2001 Colley Ave
Peter's Ten Top 748 Shirley Ave	Pizza Hut 500 W 21st St	Harris Teeter 1300 Colonial Ave
Walgreens 810 W 21st St	Taste Unlimited 1650 Laskin Rd (Virginia Beach)	Rajput 742 W 21st St
Things Remembered 701 Lynnhaven Pkwy (Virginia Beach)	Williamsburg National Golf Club 3700 Centerville Rd (Williamsburg)	Chesbay Distributing Co. 3928 Cook Blvd (Chesapeake)

Fun & Games

During the bar tour, we held the following three competitions that seemed to motivate the masses to keep moving and keep drinking! Life is short and so is our bar tour - get up and get going! Congratulations to all the competition winners - we hope you enjoy your prizes.

Bar Tour Bingo - Visit all TEN participating locations on the bar tour and receive a prize! Volunteers at each location will place a special sticker on your Bar Tour Bingo card indicating you visited that stop. Prizes can be picked up at the New Belmont starting at 8:45 PM and are limited to the first 180 participants that arrive with completed cards.
Texas Hold 'Em Tournament - Collect playing cards from FIVE or more bar tour locations and have one of the four best poker hands (or one worst poker hand) to win great prizes! Volunteers at each location you visit will hand you one playing card from a stack of shuffled decks. Bring your poker hand with you to the closing ceremony at the New Belmont where competition winners will be announced and prizes awarded. Most bar tour locations are limited to 150 playing cards each.
Shirt Signature Contest - Get the most signatures, comments, and fun stuff written on your long sleeve T-shirt and win a special prize! The top three "coolest" shirts will be voted on by the crowd at the closing ceremony at the New Belmont and prizes will be awarded. Permanent markers for those wishing to participate in this competition can be picked up at the registration booth. This competition is limited to the first 115 willing participants.

Congratulations as well to our two raffle prize winners who took home a loaded gift basket (from Taste Unlimited) and a one-of-a-kind "2006 Ghent Winter Bar Tour" Glass Beer Stein (from Things Remembered).

Supported Organization

All proceeds from this event went directly to the Make-A-Wish Foundation® of Eastern Virginia. This local Make-A-Wish chapter serves all of Hampton Roads, the Peninsula, Williamsburg, Emporia, Franklin, York, James City, Sussex, Isle of Wight, Surry, Greensville & Southampton counties and the Eastern Shore. The mission of the Make-A-Wish Foundation® is to grant wishes to children between the ages of 2½ and 18 who have life threatening medical conditions. The organization provides a bright moment of hope, strength, and joy for a child in what can sometimes be a dark routine of treatments, doctors and hospital visits. Many thanks to the Make-A-Wish staff for their unwavering support before, during, and after our first official event.

The proceeds from the 2006 Winter Bar Tour made a wish come true for Leah, age 3. Leah's wish took place on March 18th, 2006 when she and her family were picked up in a limo and whisked off to Disney World in Orlando, Florida! Leah stayed at Give Kids The World Village, a special village just for wish kids and their families. The Disney characters came to Give Kids The World to visit with the wish children and Leah was especially excited to see the Disney princesses. Thank you all for your part in Sharing the Power of a Wish! Pictures from Leah's wish trip have now been posted to her album in our online photo gallery. And many more pictures from the family's trip are also available on the Disney Photo Site.

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